A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies

This is a rather difficult article, here is what I understand of it.

1. Overall, what is the point that this article attempts to make?

I think this article attempts to make us aware that literacy pedagogy is no longer like what we are used to and exposed to as students in schools where the focus was on “learning to read and write in page-bound, official standard forms of the national language” (pg. 9), but is moving on to an era where “understanding and competent control of representational forms that are becoming increasingly significant to the overall communications environments, such as visual images and their relationship to the written word” (pg. 9) and teachers are designers of their classroom practices to work towards this changing world.

2. What aspects of 'multiplicity' do multiliteracies attempt to accommodate?

I am still unsure how to answer this question even though I have read the article a few times, can someone help?

3. What do the NLG mean by 'design'?

There are 3 elements to NLG's designs of meaning: Avaliable Designs, Designing and The Redesign. Avaliable designs are like templates which people are familiar with and often use with little variation, Designing never reproduces avaliable designs and involves "new use of old materials, a re-articulation and recombination of the given resources in avaliable designs" (pg. 22) and The Redesigned is based on prior received patterns of meaning and at the same time a totally new product which can become an avaliable design for future use.

4. How do you imagine multiliteracies pedagogy, as the NLG describe it, might operate in the contexts in which you have taught (e.g. your practicum experience(s))?

In my practicum experience I have always included PowerPoint slides with animation and used BrainPop (a website) in my lessons, but I have never considered that I am using multiliteracies in the classroom. I was using these as I knew that these will appeal to the students and will be able to capture their attention better.

Can image do what writing does, or writing what image does?

After Wednesday's lesson I was thinking about this question. While fishing, I was looking at crabs eating algae in the fishing pond and was thinking to myself "what a sight!", if I had a video camera to record the scene it could be used to show pupils in future then this question "Can image do what writing does, or writing what image does?" suddenly reappeared in my mind and started thinking, as a teacher in my future lessons if I would to show pupils a write up about crabs' eating habits would it be as effective as showing them a video clip of the crabs in action then I realised that writing cannot be effective in this sense as the image. How about this write up? "It's easy to tell the difference between a male and female (she-crab) by looking at the underside of the shell (see photos). The female has a broad, triangular-shaped area in the center of the shell, whereas the male has a distinctive, elongated spire in the center." We can also see that the writer has to use photos to illustrate the difference between male and female crabs thus further showcasing that writing cannot do what image does.

Then I thought how about the reverse, could image do what writing does? I feel that it supports writing but it still cannot replace writing entirely as information about the crabs cannot be all captured by images and it is not effective to use images to replace writing because we might end up having to use many images to convey information that writing can do in a sentence and there are certain scenarios that is impossible for images to replace writing, another example "The crab is one of the oldest species on earth. The horseshoe crab dates back over 200 million years and is literally a living fossil."

*examples sentences were take from http://homecooking.about.com/cs/productreviews/p/crab_pro.htm